ThermaPAK Laptop Cooling Heatshift Pad

Currently using an air cooled pad:I do a lot of intensive computer use on my 13 inch Macbook Pro and the laptop gets really hot and the fans whines. I have a  Cooler Master Notepal X2 Notebook Cooler R9-NBC-4WAK-GP  which has an active USB power 140mm fan under a metal grill below the laptop. I believe this is an awesome airpowered cooling solution, but its a bit bulky and too large for a 13 inch laptop. It does work well, but also needs to be using usb power and thus draining your battery. But the targus air cooling product also isn't great for macbooks since the mac usb connection is on the left and the targus usb port is on the rear right, and the cabling between them is unwieldy.Two Heatshifts work just as well and don't need power:I tried out the heatshift 13 and it is sized perfectly for a macbook pro 13. The heatshift actually seems to perform on par with the aforementioned aircooling solution, but the caveat is that you need two of them that you swap in and out every 2 hours or so. (I would like to try a software temp monitor and can update this review with more scientific settings - please respond if you know of a free one for a mac.) The pad has some crystals in it that get soft - its easy to tell when it is not working well anymore and you need to swap in your second one. The good part is that once the two hours go by, the first pad's crystals have hardened and are ready for a heating beating again!Tip - rotate a single heatshift pad for longer use:A tip is that the heat coming from a macbook is primarily in the left rear, and this is where the crystals soften first. The macbook heat appears to melt the crytals throughout the pad, but the ones closest that area soften the most. You can rotate the heatshift pad and get the harder crystals in contact with that area to use one pad for longer, although eventually you still would need two for heavy computer use (software development, gaming, video editing) for more than two hours.Recommend, especially suited to Macbooks:My rear internal Macbook Pro fan does not turn on now using the heatshift and it stays amazing cool. This product is well suited for macs I think for two reasons: macs cooling is primarily by conduction to the aluminum casing, with the air fan being for backup cooling. As long as the macbook is not hot, the fan wont come on and drain your battery. Since the heatshift contacts the entire bottom surface of the mac it can easily remove this heat via conduction. Also, macs don't have any air intakes on the bottom. I don't think that pad would block an air intake on a dell for instance, since it has a dimpled egg carton like surface, but at least this isn't an issue for macs. I don't think I will use an air cooled solution again. I highly recommend this product, especially for aluminum macbooks. Also, you might think bigger is better and want the 15 inch for your 13 inch macbook, but you don't need it and I don't if it would make a difference since the surface of the heatshift with the crystals need to be touching the laptop to work.

I bought this to help cool my 17" MacBook Pro. It's hard to find a good laptop cooler for a 17" laptop, when I read about these pads, I thought I'd give it a try.It's a perfect size, covers the laptop from corner to corner. It does work as advertised, at first. Once the crystals melt and heat up, the thermal properties of the pad are gone, it goes from a heat-sink to a soft, warm pad. And once it's heated up, it stays that way for a while, especially if you leave your laptop on top of it, even when it's off. You really need to move the laptop off once you're done, so the pad can cool off.That said, it does work, and I've found that after a couple of hours of gaming, you can turn the pad 180 degrees and use it some more, since only the top half really gets warm, the half under the keyboard doesn't really heat up much. But after the whole thing is warmed up, it seems like the laptop just kind of sinks into the pad and starts to heat up. I've never had the laptop get hotter than it did before I started using the pad, but I don't use it in long enough sessions where it might get to that point.So best I can give this is 3 stars. It's a great idea, it works for a couple of hours of heavy use.UPDATE: I've used the cooling pad for about 2 years, 2 months. I noticed recently that the fan runs on my laptop more often, and the pad doesn't get warm/soft anymore. According to the web page, it's supposed to last about 2 years, and it did. Time for something new, I think I'm switching to a Coolermaster fan.

Laptops (particularly certain makes and models) just get too hot. It's unfortunate, but it happens. There's no real good solution if you're actually sitting with it on your lap. I've tried five or six different fan-based laptop coolers, and none of them has done the job as well as I would like. They either are too fragile (falling apart with minimal use), too weak (i.e., don't cool enough), or a host of other problems. I have one fan-based one that works great, but it's all metal (so too heavy to carry around) and isn't designed to sit on your lap, but rather on a desk.All that being said, the heatshift thermapak does the job as well as any of those other options that I've tried, and it has the advantage of being nearly indestructible in comparison, plus lighter, silent, and pretty effective at cooling the machine. That being said, it will only cool for about an hour or two of heavy use, though I've found that if I rotate the pad, it moves a cooler spot of the pad to the hot spot on my laptop, so that's a viable strategy, I think. Once the crystals in the pad liquify, you don't get much cooling from it, though it does still protect your lap from the heat of the machine. The thing is, you just chuck it in the freezer for a little while, and presto! It's all frozen up again and ready for action. I even use it in this way (freezing it) when my body gets overheated. I just put it behind my back and it's a very refreshing blast of coolness.So yeah, laptops get hot. It's just something that happens, and there's no real good way to get around it other than lucking out and getting a machine that doesn't get hot, or you can get one of these heatshift pads. At the very least it won't break, and after going through five or six broken fan-based cooler pads, that's enough for me. Handy thing, too, is that they come in different sizes. I have a widescreen 15-inch laptop, and the 17-inch sized one was perfect for me. So keep that in mind.

Estupenda base. Funciona perfectamente. Me ha sorprendido que aisle el calor del portátil, algo que no conseguí con una base con ventiladores.

c'est un très bon produit , très pratique a utiliser, très robuste, un peu lourd mais bon...Je le recommande.

Der Artikel entspricht voll und ganz meinen Vorstellung auch wenn ich anfangs an der Funktion zweifelte. Ich bin Nutzer eines MacBook Pro welches auf dem Schoss doch schon recht heiß werden kann. Mit dem HeatShift ist dieses Manko komplett beseitigt.Das HeatShift ist anfangs mit Kristallen gefüllt, wird es durch das MacBook erwärmt so wird es mehr und mehr eine art Gel. Nach ca. 4-5h Nutzung lege ich das HeatShift zur Seite um sich zu regenerieren. Es dauert etwas bis sich das Geld wieder zu Kristallen bildet und somit wieder einsatzbereit ist.Im grossen und ganzen eine gute Anschaffung und in meinen Augen 100% zu empfehlen

I have a macbook pro and it's literally cool to the tough when using this product. My laptop slides around a little when using it on m lap but if I get it wedged in it really is worth the effort. Good product, good buy.

I purchased this item after noticing that my original 60G Playstation 3 was heating up really fast shortly after turning it on. Having modified it to 500G mem, I use it like a pc (internet, movie downloads, music and obviously gaming) so I wanted to avoid any problems or damage like some have had (check forums about the yellow light of death). The thermaPAK placed right under the playstation 3 made a HUGE difference. The built-in ps3 fan will still go on after a while, but not to it's full speed like it used to and it heats up alot less, in fact to the touch, it stays cool for a good hour before warming a little. I considered a USB fan made for laptops, but this is noise-free, nicely designed and doesn't consume electricity or drain from your ps3/laptop. Highly recommend it.